My newest arcade cab I picked up was a Sega Power Drift, unfortunately both the CPU & Video boards had faults with the Custom IC's, this basically rules them out of being repaired unless swapping the parts with IC's from another Sega board set which very rarely come up for sale... So what to do with a really nice cab, put a cracking game in it that by my reckoning used the same cabinet hardware but different connector arrangement, yes its Sega's finest racer Outrun!
I started off by comparing the wiring pin outs in the back of the user manuals, once these were documented I set about transposing the pins from the Outrun board onto the Power Drift connectors. The Power Drift cab has a filter board that connects all of the cab wiring together, there are then another set of cables that connect to the PCB. This would mean that I just need to make a new set of cables from one side of the filter board to the Outrun PCB.
Luckily for me I had an Outrun loom that I could use therefore meaning I only needed to marry up the wires to the Power Drift filter board using new connectors. The connectors labelled 'AMP' on the Sega boards seem difficult to source, a company called JST seems to produce a very similar connector but I had trouble sourcing these, that's why I decided to use my Outrun loom.. I have ordered some IDC connectors which are a similar connector type as used in PC's for the IDE & SCSI cables. Once these arrive I will make another loom and provide info on what needs to be used as I'm guessing this will be the route anyone else thinking of doing this will go down.
Below is the connector layout that need to be followed:
Every cable with exception of Coin Switch 2 and Coin Meter 2 have been tested and confirmed as working.
Some info below on the connectors I used and where you can get them:
Here's a few photos on the looms I made:
The end result is that Outrun plays in my Power Drift cabinet with Force feedback from the motor shaker in the steering wheel mechanism along with all other game IO.
I will update this post with more info when I get the wiring looms remade with connectors that are readily available. If anyone can help with sourcing the JST type connector please get in touch.
Let me know if I can assist if you're going to made a set of conversion cables, It should be pretty straight forward now the pin conversion is written done and proved to work.
Thank for reading, Mart.